BRITISH WAR PENSIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20842, 8 April 1931, Page 9

BRITISH WAR PENSIONS.

REDUCTION OF 106,000 IN 1929.

The thirteenth annual report of the British Minister of Pensions shows that the number of persons receiving pensions or allowances from tho Ministry on March 31, 1930, was approximately 1,370,000, comprising about 24,130 officers, 1030 nurses, 469,300 men, 140,000 widows, 264,200 children, and 471,340 parents and other dependants. The corresponding figure on March 31, 1929, was 1,476,000. The decline was mainly due to tho operation of natural causes, such as death (about 24,000 in the year), children attaining tho pensionable age limit of 16 (about 73,000 in the year), the remarriage of widows (about 2000 in the year). The estimated expenditure for the year was £53,743,500. This was £2,989,200 less than that during the preceding year, and brought the total expenditure of .the Ministry since its establishment to about £899,000,000. With the reduction in the total volume of work the staff of the Ministry fell during the year by 433 persons to 6175, being approximately 25,800 fewer than whqn the work of tho Ministry was at its maximum in 1920. During the year 1655 pensions were granted to widows and motherless children of men who died as tho result of their war disabilities.